The year is almost over, but before we officially say goodbye to 2023 and hello to 2024, we have one more holiday treat: we’re launching the new Reusable Content feature today! We know this is something many users are excited to see, so we’ll cut right to the chase.
Introducing Reusable Content
The concept behind Reusable Content is fairly self-explanatory: it allows Project Admins to create blocks of content that can be used across multiple pages and locations. When the Reusable Content block is edited, the content automatically updates everywhere that block has been used. Not only is this a huge time saver, it also means that you don’t have to worry about stumbling across an outdated page section that got skipped over when that content was updated elsewhere in your docs.
Reusable Content acts as a block, and you can find it in the editor’s slash menu:
The Reusable Content block isn’t just for text — it supports all Markdown, so you can include images, code snippets, callouts, and more. To see a full list of blocks that the Markdown editor supports, you can head to this page in our docs.
Right now, Reusable Content is available to Business and Enterprise customers. Business customers can create, edit, and add Reusable Content blocks to pages in their project. Enterprise customers have a global Reusable Content page for creating and managing blocks that can be used across child projects, as well as being able to create blocks at the child project level that can only be used for that specific project.
Streamline your workflow
When we created Reusable Content, we were thinking about our users that spend the bulk of their time in ReadMe using the editor to create and update their documentation. Because of that, we’ve designed this feature to make it as easy (and efficient) as possible to update and maintain documentation.
Whether you want to…
- Include version specific content
- Add relevant callouts for specific plan types or user groups
- Ensure that all related pages link back to one another
- Answer frequently asked questions
…or do something else, Reusable Content blocks make it easier to scale your documentation production and update processes. Part of that is that Reusable Content makes it easier to share editing responsibilities across multiple people, since the blocks are visible and usable by all Project Admins.
Improve your DX
Streamlining the update workflow doesn’t just save you time — it also means there are fewer manual edits and more automated updates, which leaves less room for human error. Reusable Content blocks also make it much easier to unify how concepts are communicated and repeated through your API documentation.
For example, if you realize after you’ve created a block that it answers a commonly asked question, you can always turn it into a Reusable Content block after the fact, and add it to other relevant pages in your hub:
And of course, when you spend less time manually updating your docs, you can spend more of that time giving hands-on help to your developers.
Ready to start reusing?
As of today, Reusable Content is available to users on Enterprise and Business plans, so you can start using it now. If you’re not currently a ReadMe user, you can test it (and all of our other features!) out by signing up for a 14-day free trial. And as always, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to our team — we’re happy to answer your questions and give you a tour!
